iOS 17 Makes iMessage Group Chats More Bearable With Android Users — Like

If it wasn’t made clear during Google’s “Get the Message” campaign last summer, the company certainly hoped that a quick strike Apple indicated during its recent I/O conference that RCS is probably the only solution for a more unified communication system across the iOS and Android platforms.

Also: 5 useful iOS 17 features Apple quietly released at WWDC 2023

In what can be interpreted as a response, Apple has revealed a new change coming to iMessage in its upcoming iOS 17 version, which is set for release in the fall season. This change provides a more tolerable experience when iPhone users are texting in the same conversation as Android users.

In a first, iMessage group chats with Android users, which are marked with green bubbles, will restrict iPhone users from accessing key features like thread responses, editing texts, and more. Photo and video uploads were also more compressed than usual.

In iOS 17, group chats will now unlock those restricted features for iPhone, allowing users to communicate and interact with Android users just like they do in iPhone chats. It’s not RCS, but, hopefully, it makes that one Android user less likely to be ostracized from social groups. Its a real problem,

ALSO: How to Send and Receive iMessages on Windows

Here’s the catch: Changes like edited text messages and threads don’t appear — or not in the proper order, at least — in the Messages app on Android. This means that if someone on an iPhone fixes a typo for when or where a Hangout is happening, Android users in the chat won’t see the update.

Ultimately, the “improvements” brought to iMessage group chats in iOS 17 only benefit iPhone users. And, in some ways, they hurt the text messaging experience even more for Android users.